Don Edwards NWR

It was the last day of my work contract, and I’d still not heard of whether or not it would be extended. I had a cache fairly close by (about 5 miles) that I wanted to check out, and the weather had warmed up to where it was going to be reasonable there. You could bet it was almost certainly going to be cooler and windier than locations even a short distance further inland from the SF Bay.

Joe & I headed over for a lunchtime walk. The cache was designated as a Letterbox Hybrid variety, although it certainly felt like a regular Multi cache to us. Caches aren’t normally allowed within the NWR, but this one was just a short walking loop inside the Reserve, and then to the final cache container which was just outside the boundary.

The first stage was at the posted coordinates, at the main informational signage at the parking lot. We were to look for some information on the sign, and while we did I noticed that there were some nice hand-painted tiles like the one below set into the sign.

From there we passed through the landscaped area around the visitor’s center, and out into the wetlands that this park preserves.

On the way there was a more unusual piece of artwork, this one a representation of some sort of scary-looking, enormous, face-eating demon-rat made of tile:

Well, the eyes didn’t really glow, but they were a solid black that creeped me out a bit.

From there, it was out onto a raised walkway that passes through the marsh. There were some interesting birds out by I didn’t get any good photos of them because they just wouldn’t hold still. Perhaps the two bird corpses we spotted on this part of the walk explained why the birds that were still breathing preferred to keep moving. Maybe there really was a hell-rat.

The water here was very green, I’m guessing from a high concentration of algae or other plant matter.

We were able to walk on some of these wooden walkways that provide maintenance access to some of the nearby power towers owned by PG&E.  These were short, but fun to walk along. Normally you’ll find them gated off in the Bay shoreline areas where the walkways are longer or higher (and more fun.)

I was struck (luckily in the figurative sense) by this large and interesting sign display at the entrance to the NWR. I’ve noticed a tendency for government agencies to go completely overboard with signage in the last few years, a trend that’s not gone unnoticed in places like the UK where Big Brother/Government seems to be running completely amok.

Here it was deemed necessary to have a dozen signs posted, four of which appeared to be novellas. Here one is informed that dogs are not permitted within the NWR no less than three times.

All in all it’s a nice place to visit and a great place to watch birds if you’re into that sort of thing. We had a nice walk and a fun time with the cache, which was just what the doctor ordered for our lunch break.